THE INSULA OF THE MENANDER AT POMPEII: INTERIM REPORT By ROGER LING, F.S.A. INTRODUCTION THE British project in the Insula of the Menander at Pompeii was instituted in 1978 by the late Dr. J. B. Ward-Perkins in consultation with the then Superintendent of Antiquities for Campania, Professor Fausto Zevi. Funding has until now been provided by a generous grant from Imperial Tobacco Ltd., a proportion of the profits of the exhibition 'Pompeii 79' held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1976-7. To these mentors and sponsors the author is deeply indebted—to Imperial Tobacco for their enlightened patronage of archaeological research, to Professor Zevi for first suggesting a programme of recording and analysis in the Insula of the Menander, and above all to Dr. Ward-Perkins for taking up the suggestion and largely shaping the present project. This project is in a very real sense his brainchild, and it is as a tribute to his memory that we intend to continue with it and bring it to completion in the manner that he would have wished. Special thanks must also be given to Dr. Stefano De Caro, the Director of the site at Pompeii, who has been unfailingly courteous and helpful over the past five years, and to his henchmen, Dr. Federico, the assistant director, Sig. Pelli, the technical director, Sig. Cirillo, his assistant, and Sig. Sicignano, the head foreman, for their invaluable practical assistance. Finally, mention must be made of the chief members of the team. After a brief exploratory season in September 1978, full programmes of work have been conducted in August-September 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982. The writer has acted as site director, Sheila Gibson and Diana Mitchell as architects, and Sheena Howarth, Lesley Ling, David Neal and several others as draughtsmen. Dr. Ward-Perkins played an active role in 1978 and was again present for part of the season in 1979; both he and Dr. J. J. Coulton, who stayed for a week in 1979, made major contributions to the interpretation of the architecture. The programme of recording is now over half complete, and the moment has arrived to present an interim report. Since the actual techniques of recording have been summarized elsewhere,1 this report will concentrate on the second main aspect of the work: the analysis of the structural development of the insula. The value of this analysis will be examined in pp. 53-5. It has proved possible to throw light on the fluctuating nature of property boundaries, to trace the expansion and contraction of one of the major houses in Pompeii, and to substantiate many of the generalizations made about the social history of Pompeii in its later years. A full study of the finds remains to be done, but promises to add still more to the picture of social life in the insula before A.D. 79. GENERAL BACKGROUND (figs. 1-5) Insula I 10, the Insula del Menandro, is one of the slightly irregular blocks lying between the presumed old part of the city (the 'Altstadt', roughly equivalent to the area south of Via della Fortuna and west of Via di Stabia) and the regular rectangular grid which fills the eastern part of the final walled city (the 'Neustadt') (fig. 1). It is reasonable to assume that Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.234, on 30 Sep 2021 at 23:33:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500014347 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core . https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500014347 . IPaddress: 170.106.35.234 , on 30 Sep2021 at23:33:12 , subjectto theCambridgeCore termsofuse,available at FIG. I. Map of Pompeii showing position of the Altstadt and of the Insula del Menandro Drawn by Sheila Gibson, F.S.A. 36 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL the form of the insula was partly dictated by suburban development which took place before the enlargement of the city, but in all probability the actual lay-out of this quarter belongs to the immediately succeeding period, that is to the early fourth century B.C. The more rigidly planned eastern quarter will have been laid out somewhat later.2 Whatever the date of the insula, it is not certain that any of the visible structures goes back to the first building phase. The dating of Pompeii's domestic architecture is notoriously difficult, and all we can say is that the earliest visible remains in I 10 belong somewhere between the early fourth and late third centuries. The land within the insula originally sloped fairly steeply from north to south (the differ- ence of level along the west facade is 2.40 m.), as did that in all the neighbouring insulae (e.g. I 6 to the north). That the buildings originally followed the slope is vividly demonstra- ted by the presence of walls and pavements of an earlier house partly exposed about 2 m. beneath the floor of the large oecus (room 18) of the Casa del Menandro. It seems that at some stage, or rather in two or three stages, beginning perhaps in the third quarter of the first century B.C., the owner of the Casa del Menandro terraced his peristyle and its adjoin- ing rooms over the remains of earlier buildings so as to secure a fairly level area for the main part of his house. The level drops abruptly about 2 m. to the Casa degli Amanti, which preserves the old level in the south-west corner of the insula (fig. 3). Apart from the structures under the Menandro oecus, virtually all the walls exposed by the excavators were those which were visible at the time of the fatal eruption in 79. At this stage about three-quarters of the insula was occupied by the Casa del Menandro (I 10, 4) and its dependencies (fig. 2). Opening from the north, the grand 'display' part of the house, with its axial sequence of fauces, atrium, tablinum and peristyle, occupied the central core; to the west of the peristyle lay a small bath-suite, which was undergoing alterations at the time of the eruption, and a kitchen area approached by an L-shaped corridor; and in the whole south-east quarter, again approached from the peristyle by a corridor, but also acces- sible by three entrances from the street to the east, was a service-quarter incorporating a yard and a stable. The remaining three corners of the insula were occupied by minor houses: the Casa degli Amanti (I 10, 11) at the south-west, the Casa del Fabbro (I 10, 7) and another small atrium-house (I 10, 8) at the north-west, and three rather irregular houses (I 10, 18; I 10, 1; I 10, 3) at the north-east. Finally there is a small shop-complex bestriding the adjacent angles of the Casa del Menandro and the Casa del Fabbro (I 10, 6). The Casa del Menandro and its dependencies were published in a lavish monograph by Maiuri in 1933, though with more attention paid to the decorations and portable finds, especially the silver hoard found in a cellar under the bath-suite, than to the architectural development.3 The minor houses were published separately in a long article by Olga Elia in Notizie degli Scavi (1934); but again the approach is primarily descriptive rather than analytical.4 There is no overall study of the insula and, although Maiuri sketched broad phases for the Casa del Menandro, nothing analogous has been done for the other houses. Only by analysing all parts of the insula in their relation to each other can we hope to comprehend something of the complex changes of property boundaries and building plans which took place. METHODS OF ANALYSIS AND DATING The main methods used in the analysis so far are, firstly, the study of building materials Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.234, on 30 Sep 2021 at 23:33:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500014347 THE INSULA OF THE MENANDER AT POMPEII: INTERIM REPORT 37 FIG. 2. Plan of the Insula del Menandro showing the property boundaries of A.D. 79 and the modern house- and room-numbers Drawn by Sheila Gibson, F.S.A. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.234, on 30 Sep 2021 at 23:33:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500014347 38 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL and techniques and, secondly, the interpretation of wall-abutments and anomalies in plan. These require no special explanation here. A serviceable account of Pompeian build- ing techniques is that of R. C. Carrington in his article 'Notes on the building materials of Pompeii', published in 1933.5 Briefly summarized, the earliest technique found in insula I 10, datable roughly to the fourth and third centuries B.C., is opera a telaio ('post-and- panel work') in the so-called 'Sarno limestone', a yellowish-white calcareous rock riddled with the imprints of shells and vegetable matter (pi. v). This gave way during the third and second centuries to mortared rubble construction with a facing of opus incertum, made with both Sarno limestone and dark grey lava (pi. \ib, at the right). At the same time the brown or grey tufo (tuff) from Nocera (ancient Nuceria) was introduced for carved detail and ashlar facades.